


Atonement

by Fierceawakening



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 18:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20728439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fierceawakening/pseuds/Fierceawakening
Summary: I decided I wanted Sad!Loyalist!Gamora AU, because things were somehow not sad enough.So did a bunch of other people....Fine, I'll do it myself.





	Atonement

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is another spinoff of Children of Thanos because it's an AU. I've tried to make it work standalone, but the backstories for the Black Order are drawn from the characterizations in that fic.
> 
> 1a. No, I haven't gotten to writing Cull and Corvus' backstory in that quite yet, so no, you can't look it up yet. Yes, I'll get to that.
> 
> 2\. It has come to my attention that one of the delightful personages who wanted this fic has apparently not seen Infinity War.
> 
> So, uh, that person? This is me playing with a major plot point in that one. And no, I don't just mean "how it ends" because I think everyone knows that by now.
> 
> So this is a heads up in case you don't want a massive spoiler. If you don't... it's worth it to watch IW and THEN read this.
> 
> 3\. Generic Note That Goes On All Of These: 
> 
> Just because I enjoy portraying these guys as a messed up family does not mean I endorse abusive parenting, brainwashing, child death cults, or murdering half the universe with the aid of Glowy Super Dice.

“I’ll go.”

The words are out of Gamora’s mouth before she can regret them. Before she can take them back. Before she can look into the faces of her siblings and see their jaws slacken in shock, or their brows knit in rage at her arrogance. 

She hopes, for a brief moment, that that’s all this will take. That she can launch into a run before any of them catch her and leap before anyone thinks to hold her back.

The weight on her shoulder should crush her. Not for the first time, she almost wishes it would. But the massive hand holding her back is gentle as always.

“Daughter.”

She doesn’t want to look back. But she turns anyway. It’s easy enough to pretend he’s compelled her.

He’s kneeling, just like he did all those years ago, when she was a child and his army had dragged her in front of him.

He’d talked kindly to her then. It had surprised her. Why should the great warlord Thanos, scourge of countless worlds, speak gently to someone his army just conquered? Even if she was a child.

Now it doesn’t surprise her at all.

“Father,” she says, and looks at him. Her gaze is clear and direct, like it should be. Like it always is. Like the glitter of tears in his eyes doesn’t break her. 

_It has to be me._

She wishes she didn’t have to say it. Not with the others standing around. Watching and listening and waiting. She doesn’t want them to hear it, because what they’ll hear is _none of you is enough, and we all know it._

But she can’t stay silent. If she doesn’t say it, one of them might offer to do this in her place. 

It might even work. She can’t say for sure that it wouldn’t. 

She’s seen Thanos scorn them. She’s seen him berate them. She’s seen him torment them. Take them apart and rebuild them the way he wants to. The way he never did with her. 

But she’s also seen the things he does when no one else is looking. The paint for her eldest sister, brought all the way from a world he’s purged and remade and has no reason to care about now that things have been set right. The books for her oldest brother, detailing the anatomy of thousands of species, pulled from countless blasted places where he shouldn’t have found time to look for them.

Or her other two brothers. They don’t talk about it often, and she would never ask. But she’s trained as an assassin and she knows how to have ears, and from what she’s heard, when Thanos found them one of them was dying.

Even the last of her sisters, the one he’s never treated well—she'd reminded him he owed her, and he had understood.

It’s less than she deserves. So much less that thinking about it makes Gamora’s hands clench and her stomach turn. But for all that he’s never forsaken her, and she’s watched other children fail and fall and die for less.

Which means maybe any of them is enough.

Or would be, if she wasn’t here too.

“Father,” she says again. “It has to be me.” 

Thanos tilts his head and winces like someone kicked him in the gut. The only thing that comes from him is a shuddering sigh. 

One of her siblings whispers, and hot anger curls in her. She whirls around, a curse on her lips, but they’re all staring back like she’s already struck them too, and the words die in her throat. 

“She’s right.” 

That’s her oldest brother, Ebony Maw, and there isn’t any malice in it. He steeples his hands like he’s about to give a blessing. 

“I know,” her father says, like he’s just found his voice. 

She knows she should look solemn. Incline her head and bend her knee. But all she can do is shake her head. _Don’t forgive me, brother. Do you know how many times I’ve almost run away?_

_Do you know what I did to the map that should have led us here years ago?_ _Do you know how hard I tried to forget what I read when I found it?_

“Don’t shake your head at us,” says one of her sisters, painted lips curling in a mocking little smile. “You idiot. You damned fool.”

“Proxima—"

“We aren’t angry,” one of her brothers says, stepping up to stand just behind her. He bangs the butt of his weapon on the ground like he’s calling them all to witness something holy.

She chews her lip. It’s a foolish, undisciplined gesture and she shouldn’t be making it. She knows how to look like the warrior she is, not the child she used to be. But the way her brothers and sisters are looking at her just makes formality feel wrong. 

“You should be angry, Corvus,” she says. She has something to tell them, and she has to do it now. “I had doubts. For years.” 

It’s still wrong. _I have doubts _would be better. _I have doubts, and they chase each other through my head, and they’ve never stopped since the day I stepped onto his ship and called it home. I have doubts and the rest of you don’t._

_And I’m doing this so none of you have to._

But if she says that, her father will know her doubts aren’t gone. He’ll try to assuage them, and he’ll say the same things he always says, and she’ll know that he means them but not why it’s never quite enough. And he’ll wrap his hand around her head and stroke her hair, and she’ll just have to make this choice again. And making it will hurt more the second time around. 

All her little lie earns is a snort. Not from Corvus, but from the third of her three brothers. She’s not sure if it’s filled with affection or scorn. Or which of the two to welcome. 

“Is that all, little sister?” 

She looks up. He towers over her, all scale and muscle and armor. “Cull, I don’t—“ 

“You think we’ve never wondered if there’s another way?” 

She glances at Thanos. His brows are knotted, and his hands are clenched too hard at his sides. Especially the one cased in metal. 

But he’s not calling for silence. 

She shakes her head again. This time it’s disbelief. He knows about her, or at least he should. How many times has she stormed up to the foot of his throne with a complaint, or a question, or a stubborn fear that just won’t leave? 

But he’s always favored her. And she’s always known that he’ll forgive her anything. As long as she stays by his side. 

“Cull, what are you saying? You’re the first one off the ship and you’re roaring a battle cry.” 

He grins at her, showing teeth.

She smiles back. It slides off her face too quickly. “See? You don’t need to pretend—“ 

“He’s not pretending,” Corvus says. “Our people were conquerors. But conquest isn’t slaughter.” 

“None of us is free of doubt,” says the last of her sisters, walking toward her. 

“Nebula!” she says, and hisses for silence. “You of all people shouldn’t—!“ 

“It is the truth, sister.” Nebula steps toward her, and Gamora isn’t sure she’s ever seen her move like that. Like she was never broken. Like the thing she is might just be whole. 

_Is this what you’ll be once I’m gone?_

“It is the truth,” says Ebony Maw. “No one is free of doubt. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are still here.” 

Gamora shouldn’t stare. She shouldn’t let her mouth hang open. Both things happen all the same. “You, sibling? Even you?” 

It’s Thanos who answers her. “I never said this would be easy, daughter. Not for me, and not for you. Not for any of us.” 

Gamora looks down. _That’s true. You never did._

“Sister.” 

“Nebula, I…” 

_I what? _What does she even want to say? _I’m sorry? Keep trying? Maybe once I’ve gone, you’ll know that you’re enough?_

Nebula nods like Gamora didn’t just say absolutely nothing. “There is much that I would say to you.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I cannot say it all.” 

“Yeah.” She feels tears come and knows she can’t let them fall. If she does, she might run. “Nebula, this… this thing between us. I never meant… It never should have gone this far.” 

Nebula glances at Thanos and then looks back at her. “It does not matter now.” 

“It does.” Gamora reaches down to touch the hilt of the sword at her belt. She lets her hand linger there a moment and then reaches to unbuckle the straps holding it at her hip. 

Nebula tilts her head, looking almost like the machine foolish people assume she is. 

“Sister,” Gamora says. “I want you to have this.” 

Thanos makes a sound behind her. Gamora presses her lips together and stretches her hands out to offer the sword, sheath and rig and all, to Nebula. 

Nebula stares. “I cannot accept this.” 

“You’d rather I give it to one of the others?” Gamora says and lets herself smile. 

Nebula almost smiles back. She reaches to take it, but once it’s in her hand she stares at it like she’s never seen it before. “I cannot use a sword. Not like you can.” 

“No, you can’t. But neither can they.” She tilts her head toward the others. 

That earns her a laugh. She reaches out to tap Nebula on one shoulder. She wants to do more—wants to reach out and wrap her arms around her sister, the way Father wraps one of his massive hands around her head when she needs comfort. 

But if she does that, she will break. 

“You’ll get it eventually,” she says. “I’m sure of it.” 

Nebula touches Gamora’s cheek. Her thumb wraps around Gamora’s chin. She doesn’t say _Thank you _and Gamora doesn’t answer _You’re welcome, _but she thinks it before she lets herself pull away. 

“Daughter.” 

The word is a choked gasp. He doesn’t touch her shoulder again. She wonders if that means he doesn’t want to break either. 

She lowers herself down in front of him, like this is just a ritual, like she’s showing obeisance like all of them do all of the time. She didn’t like seeing her siblings do it but there’s something comforting about it now. Something that keeps her from screaming. 

“Did you know it, little one? Did you know that this would be the price?” 

_Is that why you doubted? _is all she hears instead. _Is this what made you hesitate?_

She wishes she could answer yes, but she can’t lie again. Not to any of them, not now. Especially not to him. 

“No,” she says, and the tears start coming. “No, I didn’t know it. All I did was read a map.” _And hide it and burn it and pretend I never saw what it said._

He sighs. She hopes he’ll say something. She hopes he’ll tell her he’s disappointed. Hopes he’ll tell them all, so what’s about to happen to her can feel a little like justice. 

He doesn’t speak. Instead he turns to look past the cliff they’re standing on and squints, and she thinks she sees a tear on his cheek but isn’t totally sure her own are gone. 

“You’re very brave, little one,” he says at last. “You always have been.” 

She wants to say she isn’t. She wants to say she never was. She wants to thank him. She wants to run to him and wrap her hands around his leg like she used to do when she was scared. She wants to run to her brothers and her sisters and she wants to get back on the ship and she just wants to go _home_— 

But this is her home now. These people. They are her family now. And all of them need her. And if Thanos is right, the universe needs her too. 

“I am ready,” is all she says. 

He tells her to stand. She does it, and pivots like she’s practicing a fighting form. Smooth and even and cold. She stares out over the cliff and looks at the sky, and she wonders if the sun is setting or if that’s just how things look in a place where souls are harvested. 

_It’s beautiful,_ she thinks, and the thought is fierce and defiant and angry and she just wants to stand here and stare at these clouds and the pink light limning them and nothing else, because yes, yes, it’s beautiful, and that means she doesn’t want to lose it. 

She doesn’t look back at her siblings. She closes her eyes, once she can stand to do it, and pictures them all in her head, as perfect as her mind can make them because none of them are perfect but it’s how she should remember them, here at the end of everything. 

She opens her eyes again and drops into a runner’s stance, and her body is a fool that expects a fight or a challenge, and adrenaline courses through her veins and makes her eager for something, and she lets out a laugh because whatever it’s eager for, it can't possibly be this. 

She tilts her head like she’s asking a question and glances back just long enough to see Thanos nod and then she’s running and when her feet hit the ground the shock is almost like a blessing because she knows it won’t last and then she launches herself over the edge and for a moment it’s like she’s weightless and just for that moment, she smiles. 

### 

There’s water around his legs. He knows it because he can feel it, can hear the soft lap of little waves. But the only thing he feels is empty, and every time he draws in a breath it feels like pain. There’s something in one of his hands and it’s warm and that should comfort him, but whatever it is just feels like it’s slicing into his palm. 

He tries to slow his breathing, but he’s not sure that will help. Someone is screaming, and he doesn’t think the voice is his but it might be, just because the sounds it’s making are exactly what he feels. 

“Father,” someone says. Their voice is soft and concerned, and that almost makes him smile but it’s not the voice he needs to hear. So he just draws in another breath and lets the air stab his lungs again. 

He opens his eyes and sees that it isn’t him screaming. The screaming one is a woman, and she’s crying out “No! No! No! No! No!” and hitting the surface of the water with the bottom of a tight blue fist, like she’s desperate to break something and the water won’t comply. 

“Nebula,” he says, and his voice sounds strained. She’s holding something in her other hand, careful like the thing is precious, and all he can think is _That doesn’t belong to you! _He’s surprised how angry the thought makes him, but he welcomes the rage because it's better than the ache inside him. 

Nebula looks at him, and her eyes widen in fear. She looks at the thing in her hand—a sheath, he realizes, with a weapon retracted and tucked away inside it—and then back at him, and says “I know, Father. I do not deserve this.” 

She holds it out to him. He wants to take it from her. Wants to keep it, and protect it, and tear anyone who touches it apart. Even if that person is himself. 

_You’re right, _he wants to say. _You don’t deserve it. No one does. Least of all the one who never measured up._

But the words that come out of his mouth are, “She thought you did.” 

Nebula stares at him. 

“It’s yours,” he says. “You're the one she gave it to.” 

She wraps her hands around it and clutches it close to her chest. “Thank you, Father.” 

He expects to hear _I swear I will not disappoint you_, but she doesn’t say that. He’s glad of it. Because that’s not a promise she can keep. And neither can the others, not now. Maybe not ever. 

He hears splashing water, and the others move toward him. In a circle, like they mean to protect him. But the thing that’s laid him low has already struck, and he takes no comfort in it. 

“Father,” says Ebony Maw, and folds his hands like he’s praying. “It is done.” 

“Is it?” says Proxima, wading closer and looking at Thanos’s clenched fist. “Did..." She hesitates, and Thanos wonders when he's last heard her falter. "Did she do it?” 

“She did it,” growls Cull, more roar than speech. “We all heard how it works.” 

Corvus nods and leaves his head lowered. “We heard, yes. Did she succeed?” 

Thanos stretches out his hand and turns his fist palm up. He opens his hand and there in his palm is an amber colored stone, bright with its own energy. 

“She did,” he says, and smiles.


End file.
